Lovely choice, Ben. The anti- "Ugly American."
Jumping from their journey to foreshadowing Richard's death was initially jarring, but I settled into the story.
The stories about the villagers -- Basilico Garcia, the doctor's suicide -- at times were more interesting than Sara and Richard's storyline.
For an anti-Christian tale ("better heretics than Baptists" -- hehe), the villagers blew past a number of the Ten Commandments. Was that intentional, or just the makeup of human behavior?
I want a green parrot that says, "Vamanos!"
And did anyone think this was odd in the chapter "Kid Munoz" (sorry, can't find tilda): Sara dances with a miner, and it follows: "This is how she met Basilico Garcia."
Did you expect further interaction between those two?
Hope I'm not rushing Ben or anyone else. I've got to post some questions before the story starts leaking out of my memory -- albeit this one's memorable.
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6 comments:
cl, I should finish tonight.
It is a lovely choice. It reminds me a lot of "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" — a small, spare book about a Latino culture written by an American with poetic sensibilities and an eye for landscape and small human dramas. It astounds me how much Harriet Doerr has in common with Thornton Wilder — it makes me think Hispania grabs certain individuals and does something irreversible to them.
I think putting Richard's death up front was the only way to go. Their awareness of it colored everything. It was jarring when first alluded to, but in a way that would be equally jarring in real life should you learn of someone's impending doom.
Sara's character is very interesting. I love how she makes up stories about the villagers. I love how she's an outsider on the inside. Holy cow, I loved the chapter where she learned Spanish from the nun.
I think the author found a primitive (if aggravating) beauty in the native elements of the villagers — their superstitions and primal passions and materialism — and the way that converged with their Catholicism. She was never condescending about it; it's like beauty rose to the top of everything she looked at. That more than anything reminded me of Thornton Wilder.
I also thought Sara and Basilio would hook up somehow!
KC, hope that didn't have any spoilers.
Have you read anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? I haven't but think you've mentioned him.
No spoilers, cl.
I just remembered that Thornton Wilder was up front about the death in "Bridge." Knowing what was about to happen was important to the mood of the story, just like in "Ibarra." And it works so well with the other themes of death in the book.
Plus, knowing the ending makes the whole thing seem like a painting looked at from above. It fits the landscape. And it's truer somehow, in avoiding the artifice of the narrator pretending he or she doesn't know what's coming next. It's all there in one piece. The story becomes secondary to the expression of the story. I like that.
Oh, but I didn't answer your question, cl, regarding Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I tried to read one of his books once, but I can't remember now whether it was "Love in the Time of Cholera" or "One Hundred Years of Solitude." I think it was the latter. Both titles are unbearably romantic. But, alas, I couldn't stay with it. The Magical Realism just didn't catch my fancy. I had the same problem reading John Nichols' "The Milagro Beanfield War."
I think I'm mixing my bridges. Hemingway and Wilder. Maybe I haven't read Wilder, either.
I took five years of Spanish (retaining very little of it), and of some of the great things we could have read, we did Don Quixote, which I hated.
And my textbook's version of John Smith was Juan Bobo. Poor old Bobo was always getting himself into some kind of fix, complete with sixteen varations on verb tense.
Off-topic, my exposure to French has been watching films, but I think I wish I'd taken French instead. It's a much more elegant language.
The "Stones" book has put me in the mood, though, for a beat-up resort in a sultry, hot place that serves Corona with limes, and danger in the air.
OK, I just finished. I have to say, I found the last two or three chapters almost unbearably poignant.
I thought the same thing about Richard's death being out there from the beginning. At first I thought, well, there goes the suspense. But at the end you see it's necessary to know Sara's experience. To feel the depth of her denial and anger. And it was representative of this kind of death. You see it coming from a long way off, and yet, when it comes, you don't believe it.
The villagers were fantastic. Such a sordid bunch.
I also loved Sara's fantasy life. She's like Amelie. The chapter with the nun was great.
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